RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

More than 50 injuries - including a broken back and eight fractured ribs - were missed by a succession of social workers and health visitors.

MPs admitted yesterday that they were losing confidence in the watchdog, after it revealed it sheds all files relating to social work inspections after three months.

Ofsted has also been lambasted for praising Haringey social services as 'good' last year, even though Baby P had recently died while on its child protection register.

After being ordered to look again at the service's child protection procedures, it concluded there had been devastating failures.

Barry Sheerman, children's committee chairman, warned that inspections were not tough enough to prevent more child deaths, and accused the watchdog of failing to appreciate the public 'disquiet' triggered by the case.

He called for one inspector to be permanently installed in all 150 local authorities.

Ofsted faced criticism last month for producing inaccurate and misleading figures for the number of abuse-related deaths in its annual 'state of the nation' report.

Aged just 17 months, Baby P had more than 50 injuries when he was found dead in his cot last year. In the light of his death a 'whistle-blower hotline' for social workers has been proposed

Chief inspector Christine Gilbert told MPs yesterday that her officials had looked at the data again and downgraded their estimate from 282 to 210.

However, this contrasts with figures for abuse-related child deaths cited by the NSPCC, which states that one under-16 dies from abuse every seven to ten days.

Ofsted said its figures relate to under-18s, and include suicides by young people and other causes of death including anorexia when neglect or abuse was a factor.

Phillip Noyes, director of policy at the NSPCC, said: 'Our statistics are based on official homicide figures, which are probably an underestimate. However, we do need to understand more about this data from Ofsted.'

Tory MP Graham Stuart, a committee member, said: 'We are talking about more than three children every week in this country killed by abuse. That is a horrific statistic.'

Mr Sheerman said: 'There is something deeply wrong with a society which has this number of child deaths a year, and a child protection system that does not save them.'

Addressing Miss Gilbert, he said: 'Is there not an air of complacency around this?'

Speaking after the committee hearing, Mr Sheerman said he was 'less confident' in Ofsted's capacity to hold social services to account than before the meeting had started. 'I am not at all confident-there isn't another Haringey waiting to happen,' he added.

The committee heard that neither Miss Gilbert nor many in her senior team have a background in social care.

Miss Gilbert said Ofsted was setting up a 'whistleblowers' hotline' for social workers to call if they are concerned children are falling through the net.

She promised that, in the future, Ofsted inspections would involve monitoring the work of staff on the ground and not just reviewing paperwork from an office.

A spokesman for Ofsted said last night that it had carried out reviews of 50 serious cases involving death or injury to children between April 2007 and March this year.

The cases included 21 babies aged under one year, 16 of whom died, he added.

Only two of these 21 babies were on the child protection register at the time of their death or injury, although 14 were known to social services.

Case study: 'Starved to death'

Kyria Ishaq was found dead in 'squalid and appalling' conditions

Khyra Ishaq allegedly starved to death in a horrific tale of neglect and abuse.

The seven-year-old was found by paramedics lined up on a mattress next to her three brothers and two sisters who were emaciated and needed hospital treatment.

One police official said the conditions were 'squalid and appalling, something hard to believe you are seeing in modern-day Britain'.

An educational social worker had reportedly visited the family home eight weeks before the young girl's death and within two weeks of the six children being removed from school.

It is believed the worker could not get into the house and there were no follow-up visits.

Khyra's mother Angela Gordon, now 34, and boyfriend Junaid Abuhamza, now 30, were charged with murder. The other children have been placed in foster care.

Share or comment on this article:

Three children killed by abuse in England EVERY week, Baby P probe reveals